BuzzFeed tries to take down populist news site for covering Tommy Robinson positively

Politicalite is a tabloid right-wing media outlet. They launched barely two years ago and are an emerging and important voice in alternative media. Being new and right-wing you’d think the mainstream media wouldn’t give them a thought.

You’d be wrong.

As it happens, this past week Politicalite’s Founder Jordan James was contacted by Mark Di Stefano from BuzzFeed News UK to ask about a third-party advertising application Politicalite uses to help fund the site and writers.

After enquiring about the app Mark then asked Jordan about his affiliation with Tommy Robinson. Jordan replied that he had never met Tommy but agreed with some of what Tommy says due to his personal experiences so gives him fair coverage.

Jordan explained to Mark that as a “gay man, Islam is not welcoming to me or my partner (who can’t even come out due to homophobia in the UK) and when you receive homophobic [verbal]attacks from members of the Muslim community it doesn’t make you all that welcoming to the religion”.

This fact, however, was of no interest to BuzzFeed as it didn’t fit their narrative. Instead, in true leftist fashion, Mark/BuzzFeed then lobbied the third-party app in an effort to silence Politicalite.

The advertiser gave into pressure and as of yesterday their app was no longer enabled on the Politicalite site.

In communications with Jordon, the advertiser said they had suspended the contract pending investigation and made mention of a BuzzFeed article which had not been published on the site. It appeared the following day, however.

Jordan told me: “It makes it impossible to fund our site when companies like BuzzFeed are lobbying other companies to take away our advertising. None of our writers work full time, I try to pay them what is possible but it’s an attempt to silence us by taking away our source of funding.”

Politicalite’s official statement: “Politicalite works with a wide range of advertisers and companies via third parties to help fund the running costs of our citizen-based alternative news outlet.

We don’t have gleaming offices and our writers all work from home, and most have other jobs.

The Ad Revenue we raise helps to pay our writers, who aren’t Oxford graduates – most are every-day working class people, just like me who feel they deserve a voice and feel their political opinions deserve a platform.

It also helps us to continue to give a balance to the mainstream media narrative, which we don’t feel represents working-class people like myself or our readers.

We’re not surprised BuzzFeed is trying to take Politicalite down, and we must be doing something right if a media giant is trying to defund a working-class website that’s produced from the heart of working-class Britain.

We will continue to provide alternative views and the unreported news, with or without the added ad revenue.”